‘Add disabled-friendly features on websites’

Stating that representatives from Disability Rights’ Alliance met the Commissioner for Disability Rights, Smitha Sadasivan, Disability Rights’ Activist, said, “We had requested the commissioner to make their website accessible, besides seeking steps to make all government websites accessible for disabled persons. What is appalling is that disabled-friendly featuresare absent in the Department of Welfare of Differently Abled Persons’ website also.” 

“Many websites, including that of the Madras HC and TN government, are not compliant with the said norms. 

It has been more than two years since the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, functioning under the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, implemented the Accessibility India Campaign, aiming to make around 3,000 websites in the country accessible to the PwDs. 

However, it continues to remain a challenge till date,” said SathasivamKannupayan who runs the website enabled.in, which is an accessible disability inclusion portal. 

Stating that most websites fail to adhere to the requirements of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2AA, issued by the World Wide Web Consortium, Accessibility Consultant Shankar Subbiah said, “Various guidelines including the Guidelines for Indian Government Websites devised by the National Informatics Centre and adopted by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances are least followed.” 

Even though accessibility proves to be difficult, Raguraman K, Assistant professor, Government Arts College for Men, Nandanam, said, “Improvement has been seen on the websites in this aspect, as compared to the situation earlier. 

However, he said, navigation tends to be a challenge. We have to depend on someone else to help us navigate the websites and fill in the forms - be it while applying to institutions online or the like. We have been seeing some improvement on the IRCTC website though, which was done following our constant requests.”